Why against death penalty?

Without death penalty, prisons would be overloaded. Criminals would be released to make room for new criminals and many of these criminals who were sentenced for life for murdering or raping someone would be roaming the streets where you live. lots of tax money is wasted on these criminals, people who plan to murder would have nothing to fear since they are guaranteed they won't get any harsh punishment and that would increase the crime rate. And the planet is already over populated, so why not get rid of the rotten apples?

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That does not address the problem of the fallible courts that convict people to death. People will be executed while being innocent of the crimes for which they are convicted. If more people will be executed, more innocent people will be executed as well.

What exactly defines a 'bad apple'. Is it YOU, given the same historical experience and genetic predisposition for being a recidivist offender, that shall be exterminated? And who are YOU to decide what 'bad apples' are to be executed and who should get another chance at life? What human life is absolutely defined as being unworthy and who is it that decides that? Think, for a second, about the responsibility of that.

Crime is a symptom of societal dissonance. It has been shown that there is a correlation between religion and crime and it is entirely likely that religion is a primary cause for current crime rates in the USA. We should work towards eliminating religion more than we work towards eliminating the symptom.

Most people in prison are there for nonviolent crimes. Require them to make restitution instead. So much for overcrowding: now you can incarcerate dangerous violent criminals for life without parole for less money than it costs to go through the process of trying, convicting, going though appeals and killing them. Also, violent crime increases whenever an inmate is put to death in a local community, so the deterrence argument is unfounded. Finally, people are sometimes convicted of crimes they did not commit. As long as they are alive, there is a chance they will be exonerated and released. I can't raise the dead -- can you?

Human error is too prevalent in most cases. I would hate to be an innocent person sitting on death row because I didn't have a good attorney, as many others have and are.

Malice and ego. Though there are less errors now, there are still people unethical enough to plant evidence or falsify information regarding the case. They think these kids don't matter. They're wrong.

Rehabilitation. The ability to murder someone is something that most people don't have, save for self defense. There is something wrong, and if it's wrong, it may be able to be fixed.

Ethics. I don't believe in "an eye for an eye." If someone raped and murdered someone I loved, I'd want to kill them, but even then I wouldn't want it left up to the courts.

Finances. People are on death row for years. The system is broken. This costs more than if they'd simply murder them after their sentencing, but thankfully they have rights even as a convicted felon to appeal.

It's not an adequate deterrent. People don't care if they could die for committing a crime because no one ever thinks they're going to get caught.

Falterer said: "People's respect for the sanctity of life dwindles in such an environment."
Sanctity - Etymology: Middle English saunctite, from Anglo-French sainteté, from Latin sanctitat-, sanctitas, from sanctus sacred.
If this is not what you meant by "sanctity", then, please explain what you mean by "sanctity".
If you really meant it, then please explain what makes life sacred? Based on what? Said who? Maybe it is sacred for you but not to others.

As far as death penalty is concerned, guilt, punishment are meaningless since human beings are but a complex biological "machine" with a sofisticated software/hardware (the brain). A malfunctioning machine shall be recycled if it cannot be fixed. Those that are fixed through psychoanalysis and the like should be set free. You, know, they killed that mum and her kid because they were themselves tortured when they were kids. They are themselves social victims. If terapy cannot cure them, then.....recycle. No need to waste time and resources to jail them. What's the point? "sanctity of life"?

There is the argument that 99 guilty men escape the death penalty so that 1 innocent man not be unjustly executed. I have always thought that, as hard as it is to imagine, an innocent man, unjustly accused might see his execution as justice for the victims of the 99 guilty men.

I must confess I would not feel any compassion for the victims of 1,000 guilty men, women and pit bulls, if I were the one about to be executed unjustly. How can a dead victim receive justice or benefit in any way? The victim no longer exists, so would not even be aware of having been wronged. Pardon me for being so crass, but a murder victim has attained the ultimate "closure," which is the rationale du jour in arguments for the death penalty.

Unfortunately, you cannot use the death penalty as a solution to that without incidentally killing ALLOT of innocent people.

Here in Canada, we use the worst of the worst criminals for psychological tests. They're far more use in understanding how a malfunctioning brain works than they are dead. Criminal psychologists get a first hand look at how they think and react to different stimuli.

The solution is to stop putting people in jail for possession of minor illegal substances.
Then make life imprisonment for murderers, and pedophiles actually mean life imprisonment.
And finally, remove the excessive creature comforts and put them to work, they're criminals, not ceo's at the damned Ramada.

As much as I'd love to see the pedophiles dropped on a band saw from a few stories up, the unfortunate truth is, there's a chance of mistaken identity, it's small, but it's there.

But if their brains are malfunctioning, then they are sick, not criminally culpable. They still should be confined if they are dangerous, but not for punishment so much as for care and protection. Any experiments done on them should be designed, in part, to benefit them personally and involve no suffering that cannot be justified by a greater benefit -- preferably, again, to them personally.